Soundtrack for the City

Woosh woosh (Please Mind the Gap! Doors Closing.)

Hoonk Hoonk! (Beep Beep Beep!)

Shuffle, Click, Shuffle, Click

Deal for you! Only Fi’ poun’!

Can you take a picture?

….

To your left is Buckingham Palace

Oi! Watch it you idiot!

‘scuse me, Pardon me

Which way to the Tower of London?

Good service on all lines!

…

Evening Standard?

Do you need help, love?

I’ll have a pint of Guinness, please!

There’s no business like show business

Life goes on, and on, and on

…

New York is known as the city that never sleeps, but what city ever really sleeps? The sounds of London are unceasing. They ebb and flow like the tide of the Thames, but they’re just as constant and that iconic river.

Cars whiz around the city, engines purring along, punctuated by the occasional horn. People walk by, alone, in twos, threes, fours. During the day, mobs of tourists can be seen shuffling along behind a tour guide, chattering to each other in their mother tongue. Babies cry, toddlers jabber. School children squeal, set free in the parks in their school uniforms. Businessmen and women stride along, barking orders into cell phones, always in a hurry to get from one place to another.

How do people cope with the constant buzz of the hive that is London? The only answer I can seem to find is music. Everywhere you look people have earbuds in, listening to iPods, mp3 players, or whatever device they have. If there’s no one to talk to, music blocks out the noise and allows them to become an island unto themselves. Londoners seem to prefer the isolation personal music devices provide. Books or newspapers leave room for the possibility of conversation. Having little pieces of plastic stuck in your ear, blasting music negates that possibility. Nobody can connect with you and share an experience with you as they can with a book or a newspaper. There’s no cover to inspire conversation. There’s only you and your music.

I’m as guilty as anyone of this, perhaps more so. Not only do I pop in my headphones for a tube ride or a walk by myself, if the tube ride is more than two stops and I have a seat, I’ll pull out my Kindle as well, another tool of anonymity. I often see other islanders and wonder what their soundtrack for the city is. Do they see the city accompanied by classical music, as it might be in a high brow drama? Or do they hear the upbeat strains of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber? Is their city a moody emo-indie band or old-school rock and roll?

My soundtrack for the city is as manic as the city itself. It contains 125 songs, lasting a total of 7.9 hours (I’ve yet to listen to it straight through). Among the many artists it encompasses are: The Cast of Glee, Alanis Morissette, Michael Buble, Blue October, John Mayer, James Taylor, Elton John, and, my favorite, Josh Groban, of course. Needless to say, there is a VERY wide range of music for me to experience the city with. Walking home from class, I might be more inclined to listen to something more mellow, but edgy like Norah Jones or John Mayer. On the way to the theatre, I prefer to listen to songs from musicals like Wicked or Les Miserables. When walking to my particularly early class, I find that I need music from Glee or classic 90s bands like Hootie and the Blowfish or Counting Crows in order to get my system jumpstarted.

Perhaps the other islanders use music as I do. I typically leave one ear empty of headphones in order to experience both the city’s soundtrack for me as well as my soundtrack for the city. I prefer my music to enhance the city, not detract from it. So, while being an island, I am still one with the city and the people around me.